- To: Customer Service -- Power Company, Cable/Phone Company,
Water Utility, UPS, FedEx, Postmaster.
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- To whom it may concern:
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- Recently the federal government has announced a program
called; Operation TIPS - Terrorist Information and Prevention System http://www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html
to gather information on "unusual" and "suspicious"
activities by Americans.
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- They assert that they will be recruiting the staff of
your organization in particular to be informants for this program, so that
your staff, when they visit the homes of your customers and delivery destinations,
can snoop for such unusual activity and report it.
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- As your customer, I am opposed to this program on principle.
I believe it will create a climate of suspicion and distrust. Americans
should not be asked to spy on Americans. I have allowed your employees
onto my property to conduct mutually beneficial business, but have always
presumed there was an expectation that my privacy would be protected, that
what was seen on my property would be considered confidential if it didn't
relate to the business at hand.
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- Do I worry that TIPS informants will see anything on
my property that is suspicious or unusual? No -- though those words are
of course hard to define and what's unusual to a member of your staff may
be normal to many others. I believe that a society under surveillance
is not a free society, and your organization should not participate in
such surveillance, no matter how benign it may seem at first blush.
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- As such I request and demand that no employee you send
to my property be a member of the TIPS informant program or any such similar
program. Any member of the TIPS program found on my property will be considered
trespassing and treated accordingly as provided by law.
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- (For non-monopoly organizations:)
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- If you can't comply with this requirement (say for example
all your employees in my area join the TIPS program) please contact me
as soon as possible so that I can arrange to take my business elsewhere,
or require those who send packages use an alternate service which does
not spy on its customers.
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- I realize this may seem like an egregious demand. After
all, I could hardly require you to not send employees who are members of
certain societies, or of certain creeds. TIPS however is a government
program, and my request concerns activities they will undertake while on
my property. I believe if an employee is sent to my property, they should
do their job, not report on my activities.
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- In addition let me state that it is my expectation that
in the ordinary confidential course of our relationship, you would not
report that I have sent this letter to any authority or any TIPS informant,
as complaining about a policy should never be grounds for suspicion in
a free society. You may of course report in aggregate the number of such
letters you receive.
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- Please contact me if you can't comply with this requirement.
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- Yours truly, WHEN THE GOVERNMENT FEARS THE PEOPLE THERE
IS LIBERTY; WHEN THE PEOPLE FEAR THE GOVERNMENT THERE IS TYRANNY
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